The Citizen
The Citizen is a series of single-player mods for Half-Life 2, set in a storyline parallel to the original game. The player takes the role of an ordinary man, pushed over the edge by the oppressive regime controlling his life. His home trashed, his family dead, The Citizen leaves his apartment for the last time. He seeks new friends, and a way to help the human resistance to smash the iron grip of the Combine. What follows is a winding tale of betrayal, determination and grief. Many obstacles lie in his path which require a sleek combination of agility, stealth, intelligence, and sheer violence to overcome. Part One In the beginning, on-screen text describes the Citizen as living in an apartment and that he was never interested in joining the rebellion against the Combine. The player starts the game in this apartment facing a television set showing video of a hallway with a door. Suddenly, two Metrocops appear on the television and begin busting down the door, which turns out to be the Citizen's own door as the officers enter the room. One of them knocks the Citizen unconscious with a stunstick. Eventually, the Citizen awakes to find his apartment is completely trashed and his TV missing, forcing him to leave and motivating him to seek out the Resistance. Other residents of the apartment are gathering downstairs, but a man (identified as 'bully' in the game files) is blocking the stairs, demanding the return of the television set the Citizen borrowed from him three weeks ago. The Citizen finds another TV to give to the man but unintentionally breaks it, causing the man to berate him before allowing him to keep the broken TV and finally leaving. Downstairs, a Metrocop is blocking a door to the outside, and a number of residents are gathered in a common area where Father Grigori is delivering a sermon. The Citizen meets a woman in a white shirt (identified as Susan in the game files) who invites him to talk privately in her apartment. She explains to him that if he wants to get started with the Resistance, he should speak to a man named Argento on the top floor. She also provides the Citizen with some medkits before sending him on his way. When the Citizen initially encounters Argento, he is near a window. Argento directs the Citizen to look at a City Scanner on the other side of the window, then uses a device to send a signal to it that causes it to self-destruct. Argento directs the Citizen to leave the building and look for Larry, a man who operates a garage across the street. Argento then hands the Citizen a key card to open the door and tells him to stay out of Civil Protection's sight, since Larry won't let him in if the cops are on his tail. Outside on the street is the aftermath of a bloody battle between citizens and the Combine. The Citizen must take care to avoid attracting the attention of the surviving Metrocop at the end of the street (a crowbar can be found in a dark corner in the event that the Citizen is spotted). Upon arriving at Larry's garage, Larry explains there's not much he can do for the Citizen, but tells him of another man named Moe who runs a grocery store, and that the safest way to get there is via the sewers. True to Larry's word, the sewer system poses few dangers to the Citizen, but several puzzles must be negotiated in order to advance. The Citizen is required to pick up a crowbar to open one of the doors. He also discovers and dons an HEV Suit here. The Citizen exits the sewer near the grocery store's rear emergency exit. Inside, a man (who turns out to be Moe) can be heard yelling. Moe then cocks and fires a shotgun, killing a Metrocop who falls through the doorway. Moe invites the Citizen in and lets him have a pistol he keeps in the storage room. Shortly afterward, Civil Protection busts down the front door and a firefight ensues. Moe drops down a metal shield behind the front desk to reveal a turret, all the while laughing maniacally, as he, the Citizen and the turret dispatch the raiding Metrocops. However the tables are turned as a helicopter blows a hole in the roof and begins dropping Combine Soldiers into the room, forcing Moe and the Citizen to retreat into the storage room. Moe barricades the door and explains to the Citizen to get to the warehouse where his airboat is located and gives him the airboat keys. Shortly afterward, an explosion blows open the door, killing Moe. To get to the warehouse, the Citizen must pass through a courtyard guarded by a Sniper. Shortly after taking off in the airboat, the Citizen comes to a courtyard where pair of rebels, a man named Jeremy and an unnamed woman (called Anne in the game files), are bickering about how to open a gate on the other side of the courtyard. The wheel to open the gate is missing and Anne wants to look for it. Jeremy walks off to “force open that gate himself” but is quickly shot and killed by a hidden Sniper as Anne watches, prompting her to cry out in anguish and run away into the nearby building. When the Citizen follows her, she collects herself for long enough to ask him to take out the sniper. The Citizen finds some grenades nearby and obliges Anne, who then explains the that the Resistance is gathering at the Elvet Theatre beyond the gate, but that she feels that she cannot continue there without Jeremy. After finding the missing wheel, the Citizen opens the gate and moves on as Anne moves to collect Jeremy's body. The Citizen must navigate the flooded streets while dodging or dispatching the Combine forces attacking him; he then breaks through onto surface streets, then onto a railway, and is forced to abandon the airboat near some abandoned railway cars. The Citizen makes his way to an abandoned railway station where he engages in a gun battle with Combine forces, encountering Overwatch Elite Soldiers for the first time. He emerges from the station at a church occupied by the Resistance. A woman (called Myrle in the game files) is standing near a patch of flowers growing through the floor; she initially mistakes the Citizen for Gordon Freeman because of his hazard suit. A Combine Gunship flies overhead and soldiers quickly descend on the church, and Myrle calls on the Citizen to ring the church bell. However, the door to the bell tower is locked, forcing the Citizen to find the key first. After he rings the bell, Resistance reinforcements arrive to fend off the remaining Combine forces. Afterward, the Citizen is again directed to head for the Elvet Theatre. He must continue through another apartment building, exiting into a city square where he encounters a Strider and more Combine forces. After discovering the Rocket Launcher and taking them all down, the Citizen crosses the street to the Elvet Theatre, the basement of which has been converted into a Resistance stronghold. In the basement the rebels are blowing a hole in the wall to connect the basement to their barracks. A rebel calls everyone to gather around a radio to listen to the commander's radio broadcast, a rallying speech explaining the Resistance's plan to kill Wallace Breen. The Citizen and the other rebels are able to get about four hours of sleep before the mission. Larry, in command of the squad, leads them to the Spare Time Café to meat up with Argento, who is working on hacking a City Scanner. He explains that his plan is to slip it past the Combine's defenses and open some secure doors, a plan that thankfully works. However, the rebel squad is stopped by a second set of locked doors. Larry notices a switch in a room behind the door, and tells the Citizen to go through a nearby air vent to access it. After entering the side room, the citizen is separated from the rest of the rebels and forced to find his own way through the Conference Center. After sneaking past a Metrocop patrolling the hallway, the Citizen manages to find and don a Metrocop's gear, allowing him to access some secured areas. His cover is quickly blown as a Combine Advisor comes out of nowhere and attacks him, destroying the disguise, then leaves just as quickly as it arrived. Shortly afterward the Citizen enters the Conference Center's library and faces off against Combine Soldiers, who have deployed Rollermines. Following the fight the Citizen again comes to secured doors, but finds a Combine Elite's gear, allowing him to open those doors as well as sneak past several Elite Soldiers. However, the Advisor shows up again, destroys the disguise and knocks the Citizen unconscious. When he regains consciousness several minutes later, he awakens to see Larry and the other rebels, though one (named Steve) is dead, killed “horribly” by the Advisor. Larry explains that Marcus is leading them to the control room. Once everyone (except Marcus) is in the room (which looks nothing like a control room), Marcus closes and locks the door and runs away, revealing himself to be a traitor. A series of metal gates at the from of the room open, revealing an amphitheater below swarming with soldiers. After the rebels defeat them, the Citizen finds and kills the traitor Marcus and frees the other rebels from the locked room. By the time they make it to the recording studio, Breen is nowhere to be found, but since the recording equipment is fully functional, Larry decides to “make the best of this” and put on his own broadcast. He sends the citizen and all but two of the other rebels away. The Citizen leaves through an air vent and becomes separated from the rebel squad, but meets up with two other rebels planning to board a train. Before they can do so, Larry broadcasts his brief speech. The three citizens board the train but are followed by the Advisor, which kills the two nameless rebels. The G-Man then appears, somehow causes the Advisor to explode, then tells the Citizen “You've done a great deal in a small timespan” as the screen fades to black. The Citizen somehow ends up with DOG standing in an urban graveyard, then wanders into a room with a bare mattress and lies down to sleep as the credits roll. Bugs *For some reason, the player's current Rocket Launcher ammo is not displayed correctly; it will be displayed as 3 on the HUD even if the player is out of rockets. Trivia *There are fifteen Easter Eggs hidden throughout the game for the player to find. Similar to the lambda caches associated with the Lambda Locator achievement, they are often associated with supply crates, medkits, suit batteries, and ammo clips, though one is associated with an amusing radio transmission. The designers have attempted to discourage players from cheating to find these Easter Eggs by implementing the "noclip jail" (see below). * Attempting to use noclip to enter areas out of sequence or areas that are inaccessible will frequently result in the player being sent to a jail cell with "This is where Noclip got you" written on the wall. An old man will address the player directly, explaining that such cheat codes will get them nowhere and telling them to stop it. He will then let the player out and direct them to a teleporter, sighing "I hope you learned your lesson this time, for both our sakes." A suggestive picture depicting Dr. Breen and Dr. Kleiner is visible on a back wall, with the text "So, what hand do you usually use to bring down the console?" under it. * The G-Man can be spotted at least once prior to the end of the game, in a room in the sewer system. If the player enters the room, he will have vanished. * The church found in the segment “Holy War” is a very obvious reference to Aerith's church in Final Fantasy VII. * Markis (pronounced Marcus) is the name of a traitor in Guild Wars: Prophecies. This may be a coincidence. *Posters seen at the Elvet Theatre advertise productions such as “Freeman: The Stage Production,” “Ocean's Seventeen,” “An Airboat Named Desire,” “Two Beer or Not Two Beer” with Barney Calhoun, and “Our Benefactors: a monologue of a Citizen saying how good the Combine are” with Judith Mossman. Part Two The Story pick off after Rebellion starting against the combine by storming their communication Center and the player order by Larry command ride the train to another rebel resistance base and Combine Adviser appear out of nowhere and kill the two rebel before being save by G-Man and put him in to stasis. Later, almost in the morning G-Man put him back in to his time and continue the rebellion. However, he is laid injured and discover by one rebel for asking for help from other to carry him to the resistance base and heal up as he see other people is also hard time to face the empire of suffering casualties before he went into operation table and recover. After that, the rebel medic tell him that he was lucky that Hazard Environment suit save him from Combine Adviser causing damage and combination of train being stop and discharge was told him to go to other room to get the med-kit to fully recover. Suddenly a blast hit in the wall as Combine Over-watch coming to overrun the base the rebel try to pull the cage to hold the combine before Larry and his component come to help and fend off until their garage door was open and exit to outside. As they almost to outside a huge blast knock the player to other room smashing into unconsciousness and seeing other people keep struggle and seeing Larry is being taken into Custody before he was fully knock out. As he wake up, a rebel cheer that he is waking up and telling him to grab all his staff and run along with her to the street near to the Hockey Stadium. The Squad Leader of Rebel are telling the Technical to locate where Larry is by hacking their system from inside to point where it is. After being pin-point to the Hockey where possible he held. After with some hit-and-run with Combine, they eventually make it to Hockey, but turn out that Larry was not there only some of rebel body that have be executed moment ago. Suddenly combine appear out of nowhere from Chopper and from the back-door ready to ex-animate those rebel as they try to fight their way and fending off. After that, they went to other back door of the Hockey and discussing a plan that will waken the entire City 17 of Citizen to rebellion the Combine and he ask the player to release the pigeon at the topper floor of rebel outpost so that it can gathering even more rebel to fight against the combine. When he done the Rolling-Mine come out of nowhere and starting to overrun it as the player mange to escape from the rooftop to other-side, along the way the head-crab Shell launch into the that used to be office that are now abandon and inside there a Technical try to work a device which can to re-program the turret against the combine but however, one of the equipment was missing as it turn out is just in the elevator. Later he done the device he tell the player to go behind by using the building block and avoiding the Strider patrolling the circling around. Later, the player heading to the block just next to the Casino as he went there try to open the field generator down here but all the door are lock but it turn out that he just take Med-Kit from the Chair to the dying rebel at the toilet and he will open the second floor of one of those door to see the news broadcast of Larry before he is being captured by the combine. Later that he went to upper floor a door open inside, which have a combine disguised clone which will try to infiltrate the Overwatch headquarter try to figure out the enemy doing and a switch that close down the force field down stair. After he press it other follow and once outside a strider come out of nowhere and the player to manage to get inside the casino before getting obliterated. Inside casino, it turn out that this place have be a lot of conflict ever since the start of rebellion as body everywhere and some of them are hanging around, The player was starting to go up since is the only way out from here as he start from Elevator to top and mange to get the card-key and open the door after killing the Zombie. After that, he continuing along the way and destroy that some of generator which are almost explode that sparking the water electrical that hold his path and eventually make it to the car-park exit in there an old-man was telling him that he one of few surviving to outrun the zombie, when he try to open the door it seem can't open and the old-man told him it lock from the other-side and try to component and he sleep with him. In the morning a Rebel augured him to wake up about Larry about to executed near the Church and telling him hurry up and run to the Resistance Base before again being overrun by the Combine once more. As he leading the remaining of the rebel to the outside He closed the Force Field again and try to going into post office, he eventually meet another resistance which that other rebel need to decided which plan to save their Leader Larry before being Executed and the Choices are Explosive, Snipping and Undercover as the Player only can choose one after other rebel have vote and all are draw. *If the Character choose the explosive, the Rebel will push out full offensive try to save Larry whatever the Cause. *If the Character choose Snipping, He must take out those combine who are guarding Larry before being executed by the Com-pressure. *If the Character choose Undercover, He must went to a nearby apartment and grab a Combine Elite Disguised and getting closer to Larry to take down those Combine after donning that The Resistance will launch full out offensive try to distract the Combine before they have a chance to shot him to dead. Note: It all depend on you which will choose and not change what the cause of ending. Eventually, They save Larry before Executed by the Combine. Suddenly the Alarm was sounded as the Combine Forces starting to rounded up the entire resistance in the Square. The Rebel Resistance tell the player take Larry and hurry up to get out of here and they holding the line to buy more time for them to escape after they escape through the door which lead into a Car park as the Sailing fall off and the credit roll. Part Three Part Three is currently under development and will probably be released in 2012. It will pick up after the cliffhanger ending of Part Two. External Links *Official Website *